GENERAL GOUGH—THE TRUTH

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 154, 27 March 1937, Page VI (Supplement)

GENERAL GOUGH—THE TRUTH

How the Fifth Armv Fought Against Great Odds

T’lie late Lord Birkenhead wrote this article ami died before he could correct tlie proofs. Its prophecy of seven years ago is amply borne out. General Gough and the Fifth Army have been vindicated.

In the early morning of March 21. 1918, the greatest military attack in history was launched by Germany upon tlie British front in France. It was destined to decide the Great War.

The attack represented Ludendorff’s last bid for victory. The principal force of the attack wa.s delivered against the British Fifth Army, under the command of General Hubert de la Boer Gough, who took command of the Fifth Army in 1917. On December 18, 1917, Gough’s Fifth Army took over—at the extreme south of the British line—thirteen and a half miles of front from General Byng’s Third Army, which remained on his left flank.

The line was thinly held. The trenches and defences were in many places almost derelict. Very little wire existed; and in some places the Third Army had actually demolished the wire of the defences in the rear.

Conditions were little better on the 28-mile front which General Gough also took over from the French on his right at the beginning of the New Year. Gough’s whole force to hold this long front of 41 miles opposite St. Quentin consisted of 14 infantry divisions and three cavalry divisions. General Byng, on Gough’s left, had no fewer than 19 divisions to hold a front of about 26 miles.

In other words, Byng bad almost double the strength of Gough and was, of course, nearer to such reserves as G.H.Q. disposed of in the north. When Gough took over his new front he quickly came to the conclusion that there was an imminent possibility of a strong German attack—called his subordinates together and urged upon them the importance of endeavouring to dig and wire as much as possible, especially behind the front line. In January he sent a memorandum to G.H.Q., pointing out the Fifth Army’s deficiency in men, labour and materials to hold so great a front. He had, in fact, paper strength of about one infantryman to each yard of front in the line and one infantryman to three yards of front in reserve. General headquarters replied to his urgent memorandum that, in the absence of effective reinforcements, the Fifth Army, if attacked by the Germans in overwhelming strength, must be prepared to fall back fighting; but he was supplied with some additional labour corps, including Chinese. Gough’s front was weakly held because it lay farthest from what general headquarters rightly considered the most vital portion of the British line—namely, that which covered the Channel ports. It was Gough's duty to act as a buffer to any German attack, to delay it and exhaust it, swinging back as slowly .as possible without losing contact with the rest of the British forces on his left.

Gough’s task being to tight a delaying action, the forces placed at tris disposal should admittedly have been as few, as possible. But there is a considerable difference between a bare sufficiency and ,an insufficiency; and Haig would seem to have approached perilously near to leaving Gough with insufficient troops even for the delaying operations he was to undertake. He thus threw an immense, an almost impossible burden on the commander and on the officers and men who had to carry out this great, and

what eventually turned out to be, decisive task.

By Hie middle of March it became clear that the Germans were about to attack in enormous strength on the front held by the Fifth and Third Armies.

On Wednesday, March 20, Gough visited his four Corps commanders, and warned them of the imminence of the attack.

Shortly before dawn next morning German artillery set up the most terrific barrage which had ever been experienced on any part of the front since the beginning of the war. They brought over 5000 guns into action, not counting a large number of trench-mortars.

The German attack consisted of 64 divisions.

As many as 46 of these were thrown against the Fifth Army (with its 15 divisions and 41 miles of front) and only 18 against the centre of the Third Army (with its 19 divisions and 26 miles of front) north of the Flesquieres Salient.

The Fifth Army, shattered but not defeated, continued to fight what must be regarded as among the most heroic rearguard actions of military history. By April 4 the Germans had penetrated no fewer than 3S miles behind 'the original British front; they had captured more than a thousand guns and over 60,000 men. But their attack had lost its momentum. It was now flagging and sagging.

Gough called up Sir Hubert Lawrence, Haig's Chief of Staff. He said that, iu his opinion, Hie German attackhad spent itself and was exhausted. If G.H.Q. could send him three fresh divisions he was sure, he could throw the Germans on his front back across the Somme, a distance of about 15 miles.

But no fresh divisions were sent to him.

As the weather improved the retreating British were able to oppose an enemy which was losing its first hopes of triumph and was dismayed and perplexed by the continued opposition offered to it.

The attack ceased. And Germany’s final defeat, six months later, became almost assured.

That this result was clue principally to the courage and determination of General Gough and his Fifth Army would seem indisputable. On them fell the brunt of the attack. The armies on bis flanks did not hold as firm as they might have done. Gough had neither adequate rear lines of defence nor reserves. Yet with such tenacity and courage did he continue to oppose and muffle the enemy’s advance that, after the first terrible fortnight was passed, the front still stood, and Ludendorff's last throw had patently failed. Amiens was saved; so was Paris; so were the Channel ports. So was France. So was England. Whereupon Gough was recalled in disgrace. •

Although General Gough continued to press for an inquiry, he was informed by the War Office, six months after the Armistice, that none would be held.

The official letter concluded with a personal compliment to Gough and the statement that "The gallant fight of the Fifty Army agaiust such heavy odds, and in circumstances of extraordinary difficulty, will always rank as one of the most noteworthy episodes in the Great War." Admiral Byng, it will be remembered, was shot after his failure off Minorca “pour encourager les autres.” General Gough, though his punishment was less severe, has the satisfaction—if satisfaction it be—of knowing that he has been punished, nor for failure, but for success in “one of the most noteworthv episodes in the Great War.”